Elon Musk's attorney has threatened a defamation lawsuit over an explosive documentary about the billionaire, as Ashley St. Clair released text messages in which Musk discussed a $40 million hush payment and having "a legion of children before the civil war."
The documentary's premiere infuriated Musk's camp. His attorney, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to filmmaker Alex Gibney's production company threatening a defamation lawsuit over the film's contents. Musk has hurled insults at Gibney on X, calling him a "tinfoil crackpot," a "douchebag to his core" and an "idiot," and even shared photoshopped images of the filmmaker. He dismissed the project as a "hit piece."
St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children born in 2024, alleged that Musk's team tried to silence her by offering a $40 million lump-sum payment plus a $100,000 monthly stipend in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement, which she says she refused. She also exposed text exchanges in which Musk told her he wanted to have a child with her because he needed "a legion of children before the civil war," among other messages she described as bizarre.
The documentary reportedly includes interviews with Musk's estranged father Errol Musk, his ex-wife Justine Musk and St. Clair herself. Musk's legal team objected in particular to implications in the film that Musk used Starlink to influence the 2024 election, a claim Gibney has dismissed.
St. Clair has publicly broken away from the MAGA movement since Donald Trump's return to office, expressing regret for her past role in online political outrage and warning that Musk's control of the platform X is being used to sow "deliberate division." The legal threats set up a high-stakes showdown between the world's richest man and a veteran documentary filmmaker ahead of the film's theatrical release.
Gibney is no stranger to battles with powerful subjects. The Oscar-winning documentarian behind "Taxi to the Dark Side" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" has built a career on investigations that wealthy and influential figures would prefer stayed buried. His films have repeatedly drawn legal threats, and he has a track record of standing his ground. The Musk project, which reportedly draws on interviews with people from across the billionaire's personal and professional life, is shaping up to be one of the most contentious releases of his career — and potentially one of the most watched. The film's producers have said they stand by the reporting, and the coming legal fight is likely to become a story in its own right, pitting the world's richest man against a filmmaker who has never backed down from a powerful subject.